Cyber Monday Gaining On Black Friday for Many Businesses


Move over Black Friday. Cyber Monday is here! With online shopping steadily rising, it’s clear that businesses with a strong online component incorporating e-commerce will be the best placed to take advantage of what experts say could be the new contender for busiest shopping day of the year. The online shopping trend is good news for retailers of all sizes. Even small to mid-sized businesses have a chance to reach a larger customer base not limited by physical location or number of stores. Read more about how your company can benefit too.

Holiday Shopping Moves Online

Cyber Saturday is here to stay. In fact, experts like retail analyst Hitha Prabhakar consider it a forgone conclusion that the special day set aside for online holiday shopping will ultimately overtake its more traditional cousin, Black Friday, and that those businesses that are unprepared will be left behind. The successful businesses, Prabhakar says, will be those that adopt an omni-channel retailing approach. This means a strategy that makes the online and in-store experience consistent for shoppers, particularly those who want to shop in the store but buy online. Yahoo! Finance

E-commerce shopping will increase. Increased online shopping isn’t limited to just one day out of the year. According to projections from ComScore, e-commerce sales will increase by 14 percent over the holiday shopping season. This adds up to an incredible $42 billion in business up for grabs during the period, experts say. This will be a huge boost for businesses large and small that already have a presence online. Your company should explore expanding operations on the Web immediately, if you haven’t done so already. Mobile Marketing Watch

Challenges, Tips, and Trends

Realize there will be pitfalls. Just like any other kind of business, e-commerce will have its pitfalls. Read about Steve Chou’s experience and you will soon realize that every online business owner runs into trouble sometimes. Many are familiar with the business Steve and his wife built as a great e-commerce success story. However, over the past few critical weeks leading up to the biggest shopping season of the year, Steve has encountered a perfect storm of customs problems, server failures, and shipping issues that would be any business owner’s worst nightmare. MyWifeQuitHerJob.com

Start to think globally. There was a time when small to medium-sized retailers could only focus on local customers. Back then, operating a business globally was only possible for large multinationals with massive resources and multimillion dollar budgets. Not so today, says business consultant Dave Brock. With the increase in online shopping today, it’s clear that businesses no longer need to be limited to their own back yard. Partners in Excellence

Online shopping goes mobile. Shopping is not only online and potentially global this holiday season. It is also more mobile than ever before. Businesses that are ready to take advantage of both the online and mobile trends stand the best chance for success. If you would like a glimpse at the projections for mobile shopping this past Black Friday and heading into today’s Cyber Monday rush, check out the cool infographic at the link above. WebSuccessTeam

Final Thoughts

Customers without borders. We reported earlier that as online business grows, companies of all sizes should start looking at the world as their market. In a recent post, Canadian SEO expert Jim Rudnick reports that events like Black Friday at brick and mortar retailers have already moved north of the U.S./Canadian border, and that big online retailers like Amazon and Wal-Mart now market Black Friday specials to shoppers on their Canadian sites too. Canadian retailers should consider getting on the band wagon and offering special seasonal deals for U.S. visitors to their sites, whether a particular holiday is celebrated in their home country or not. Canuck SEO

Last minute holiday marketing on Facebook. It’s human nature to wait until the last minute for everything concerning the holidays, from shopping to marketing for your business. Now that Cyber Monday is upon us, remember there’s still time to do some last minute marketing for your e-commerce business and cash in on some of the heavy online shopping that will be taking place from now until the end of the season. Facebook offers some simple and easy-to-implement marketing opportunities perfect for this time of year. Get started with some tips from Allison Semancik. Idea Sprouts

4 Comments ▼
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  1. Customers without borders can be a reality no matter the size of your business with the right online marketing presence. We have inquiries into our firm from all all over the world. It just takes the right strategy and persistence.

  2. After seeing the chaos associated with early morning openings and revolting employees, I agree that Cyber Monday looks more and more appealing to businesses.

  3. Awesome roundup. I find it as no surprise that cyber Monday is taking the gold. It certainly is much more appealing in my book.

    Ti